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Two coal mines of the Mahanadi Coal Limited (MCL), with a cumulative capacity of 35 million tonnes, face the threat of closure, if labour unrest continues. “By October, the mining activity is supposed to reach the village area, where the workers are residing. In case, they remain adamant on not leaving the area, we eventually would have to stop mining and close down our operations there,” said a MCL official.
The Bhubaneswari and Ananta coal mines of 25 million tonnes and 12 million tonnes of annual capacity, respectively, based in Odisha have been able to mine around 10-12 million tonnes till date. Another 15 million tonnes of coal still remains untapped, in the area which villagers have refused to vacate.
“We would have no option then to shift our manpower and machinery and abandon the site altogether,” said the official.
These two mines have been facing resistance from the labourers since 2010, when the rehabilitation and resettlement site for the families residing near the mines were ready. But the villagers refused to relocate. The Bhubaneswari mine is operational for the past four years, while the Ananta mines has been operating since 1991.
“We gave them final notice in October 2013 and waited till May 2014 to take departmental action, which meant ceasing their services to the organisation. Around 163 families out of 285 have shifted, but the rest are still contesting,” said a MCL official.
“The ousted workers started protest from May 20 and are currently sitting on a hunger strike. They even decided to close the mine from July 25 (on Friday) but deferred the decision on last moment. However, they also refused to relocate as well,” said an MCL official, who is in the know of the matter.
This unrest is having a cascading effect on the power production and manufacturing industry as well. The Simhadri power plant of the state-run NTPC is suffering the most from supply dip at MCL’s coal fields. Its daily supply of coal has fallen to 24,000 million tonnes from the daily requirement of 32,000 million tonnes. NTPC is making up for the loss by importing coal, which the officials said, was adversely affecting its operational cost and there are a few buyers for costly power.
Even captive power producers (CPPs) of industries around Odisha and South India, with annual requirement of 27.6 million tonnes of coal have not received adequate supply from the past two months. “Around 10,000 Mw of power production capacity of CPPs is lying stagnant due to non-availability of coal. We are forced to buy costly power from thermal plants, which is not feasible,” said a senior member of Indian Captive Power Producers Association.
MCL officials said for four days from June 10 to 14, the production was shut, affecting supply of 0.1 million tonnes of coal per day but now it’s back to normalcy. “The recovery is slow but production is not halted,” he said. Senior officers at the parent company Coal India Limited refused to comment on the development citing the absence of any full time chief managing director of the organisation as the reason for ambiguity and labour unions creating anarchy.
